


Better

by panchostokes (badwolfrun)



Series: Nick/Greg Ficlets [28]
Category: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Genre: Although it's more like, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, all hurt and no comfort, argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 02:30:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21402709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/badwolfrun/pseuds/panchostokes
Summary: Greg goes to Nick for comfort, and Nick has none to give.
Relationships: Greg Sanders/Nick Stokes
Series: Nick/Greg Ficlets [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1257824
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	Better

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Rai_Knightshade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rai_Knightshade/gifts).

> I’ve hit my fluff quota for today TIME FOR THE ANGST!!
> 
> for Rai-knightshade, for the prompt, “Holding everything in doesn’t help, you know.” which I could not have seen go any other way tbh

“Holding everything in doesn’t help, you know.”

Greg laughs coldly as he paces the room with his arms folded, biting down all the words he just wants to scream at the top of his lungs. 

“That’s rich, coming from you!” he sneers instead. 

“What’s that s’pposed to mean?” 

Greg wants to punch him, he always exaggerates his accent when he’s upset…or when he wants to make Greg melt.

But it’s not going to work, not this time.

“Oh, don’t start with the accent, and you’re the _last _person that should be talking to me about repressed anger, or-or _any _emotion, quite frankly!” 

“Wha-Where is this coming from? You came to me!”

“Yeah, _you!_ You…you dumbass, you never admit when you’re hurt, you just ‘man up,’” Greg uses air quotes with furrowed eyebrows. “Go all John Wayne and run headfirst into danger to save the day, without _thinking _about what it might do to you, or the people who love–”

“What’s with everyone calling me John Wayne, recently, I mean, I’m not taking offense, the man’s a legend–”

“You’re doing it again!”

“What?”

“Deflecting!”

“No, I’m not.” 

“Nick, you _fucking shot a guy!” _

“He was a serial killer,” Nick shrugs, holding his hands in the air. “Shot me first. Self defense.” 

“You make that sound like it happens every day.”

Nick chuckles, leaning back in his seat, a plain smile on his face. 

“It doesn’t, but it happened, and I can’t do anything to change it.”

“And…it doesn’t bother you…at all?” 

“Nope. Got what he deserved.”

“I just…” 

Greg holds his head in his vibrating hands, still stained with gunshot residue, still tasting the iron that he almost fired into another man’s body. 

But he missed.

Nick, on the other hand, didn’t..

And he supposes that’s why he thought going to Nick was a good idea, that he could find some comfort in someone who understands just how terrifying it is to be under the scrutiny of both ends of the gun, at the same time, and yet, instead of offering any _real _comfort, Nick’s just sitting there like a smug asshole who’s looking at Greg thinking less of him for freaking out at a skirmish that didn’t last more than five minutes.

What’s five minutes compared to the literal day and a half that his best friend has spent suffering in his lifetime?

“Look, G,” Nick begins, licking his lips and lurching forward in the chair with a heavy sigh. “Maybe…maybe I’m not the person you should be talking to–”

“You think?” Greg snorts. 

“A-and I’m not even gonna pretend to know the specifics of what you’re goin’ through, but…”

He pauses, bites his lower lip.

“I gotta be straight with you man…ca-cause I _care…_about you, it…it doesn’t get any easier, and if you keep it bottled up…it’ll…it’ll..” his ears perk up, it seems like it pains him to say the words, “…_eat you alive, _you hear me? And you gotta be better than that, man…”

Greg shakes his head over folded arms, his pacing coming to a halt, he gives one last look at Nick, curling his upper lip as he spins towards the door, kicking the metal mesh trash can with such ferocity that it makes Nick flinch.

“Better than me,” Nick mutters to an empty room.


End file.
